Sports
Local Hockey

Solid start for minor midget Wolves

For the Sudbury Wolves minor midgets, last week's trip to the Toronto Titans International Prospect Tournament served as an excellent gauge of where the local club stands among the province's elite AAA hockey teams.

Sudbury posted a very respectable 2-2 record at an event that included high-powered entries such as the Vaughan Kings, whom the Wolves faced in their final game.

"Parents were coming up to me and saying, 'Wow, we've never seen the boys play like this in a couple of years,' so I asked the boys and they told me they had never won two straight in a tournament for years," said Mardy St. Jacques, Sudbury's new head coach. "I thought that was really odd, but I guess it's that cliche that teams in the North aren't always as aggressive or have high success the same way, but it felt good, because it seemed like we were going in a very positive direction."

Not that St. Jacques took all the credit for his team's solid showing. He was sure to share that with his players and fellow coaches, including Bruce McDougall, Andre Brunnette and Chris McDougall, as well as the rest of the team staff.

"We prepared very well starting in August after the under-15 camp, organized some very limited systems and worked on fitness, but so far, without question, I'm very impressed with the group," St. Jacques said. "My coaching staff has grown and I have what I believe to be one of the better coaching staffs, excluding me even, on the market when it comes to the Sudbury region and the North."

They recently added a full-time trainer in Serge Solomon, who joins former OHLer Jadran Beljo and Laurentian Voyageurs alum Elliott Richardson, who will also assist with player development.

"We're starting to cement in very well," St. Jacques said.

Sudbury's coach was happy to see his players compete well at the Titans tournament, despite the pressure of playing playing before a large contingent of scouts from OHL and other junior teams, eager for a first glimpse of draft-eligible talent.

"We're just learning in every game to get better and the guys are realizing the jump that is necessary to go from major bantam to minor midget, and minor midget more successful," St. Jacques said.

"We went down and I said no matter what happened, as long as we competed, we'd be good. We played the goalies evenly and they had success and really backed us up on the weekend. The whole team was better prepared – I found this team wasn't really mentally prepared, but they took it to the next level. We put in a tight itinerary, literally down to the minute, pre-game and post-game preparation. Before, they kind of took it for granted, maybe two guys would go out of the dressing room and not stretch properly, or they wouldn't be using rollers and the baseball, just coming in and doing some stretching and some warmups, but we took it more to a Hockey Canada and a semi-pro level and I found that was really beneficial."

Focusing heavily on their defensive zone, the Wolves opened the tournament with wins over the Buffalo Regals, 3-1, and Victory Honda, 3-0.

"About half of this group really feels offensive and the other half feels very defensive," St. Jacques said. "That's because certain kids have certain abilities to score, but they want to be on the offensive side of the puck too much, so we really had to pull the reins back and redesign the team around defence."

Sudbury made its chances count in the first two contests, but had little puck luck against Kingston. Despite long stretches in the offensive zone, the Wolves came away losers of the 2-1 decision.

"Without question, we were very aggressive, and even the coaching staff came over and said, 'Wow, we're lucky to get out of this one,' " St. Jacques recalled. "In between the second and third, I told them the entire tournament was on the line and if we go 3-0 in the division, we have the Vaughan Kings at the end and we're going to turn heads with some scouts, because we only have one goal against and we need to continue that. We had an opportunity to close it out, but we just couldn't find the back of the net."

The Wolves scouted Vaughan heavily and knew the Kings were a strong team that had attracted high-level players, yet Sudbury competed better than the 5-1 final score might suggest.

"We got undisciplined, because we were over-pressured in the second, and one bad penalty led to another directly after, so it's a five-on-three and they score," St. Jacques said. "They scored three power-play goals, but it was a 2-1 game midway through the second. When we were competing five on five and playing physical, they didn't like that physicality, because there a lot of guys who are highly skilled who don't really deal with that. We weren't getting penalties on the physicality, but in our own zone, hemmed in and tired and taking a poor hooking or a slash or something.

"We ended up with a 5-1 loss, but the positive was if we were a little more disciplined, we could have shaved that down a little bit."

The Wolves have plenty of time to prepare for their next game, a Great North Midget League contest in Sault Ste. Marie on Sept. 23 at 8 p.m.

In addition to playing in the GNML, the minor midgets are expected to attend several tournaments this season.

"To get to that level, top three, top five in North America, let alone Canada, we know we're a month and a bit behind those type of teams," St. Jacques said. "Hopefully, we can somehow close that gap."